The Foods To Help You Sleep Better

Have trouble getting to bed or staying asleep? You’re not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates one in four American adults get less than the daily recommended seven to eight hours of sleep. That insufficient shuteye is leaving them more at risk of diabetes, heart disease, depression and obesity

Meat

When it comes to sleep-inducing fare, people often think of the Thanksgiving favorite turkey. But gamier meat like elk, goose, goat and rabbit are your best bet for promoting zzzs, as these options contain even more of turkey’s key sleep ingredient, the essential amino acid tryptophan. Tryptophan can help you catch more shuteye because it contains the calming hormone serotonin, but elk, for example, contains three times as much of the ingredient as turkey.

Garbanzo beans

Not into gamey meat? Garbanzo beans are also a great source of tryptophan. As a plus, they’re easier to find in your local grocery store — just head to the canned foods aisle.

Tart cherries

Tart cherries offer a natural source of melatonin, a hormone responsible for the sleep-wake cycle in humans. An easy way to get them year-round is by picking up a bottle of tart cherry juice, as research shows the benefits are the same as eating the whole fruit. A study published in the European Journal of Nutritionshowed that subjects who drank tart cherry juice for seven days slept longer and better compared to those who didn’t.

Pumpkin seeds

Next Halloween, salvage those seeds from your jack o’ lantern, as they’re proven to help you clock more snooze time. Pumpkin seeds contain the vital mineral magnesium, which promotes muscle relaxation and lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, among other benefits.

Tuna

One of the least expensive and most accessible types of fish can also help you snooze more soundly. A 100-gram portion of tuna contains 1 milligram of vitamin B6, which helps convert tryptophan into serotonin — that aforementioned calming hormone that can aid sleep regulation.

foxnews.com

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